


I Haven't Thought of You Lately at All

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Kara seeks some physical therapy to deal with sleepless nights after New Caprica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Haven't Thought of You Lately at All

**Author's Note:**

>  Written for [](http://workerbee73.livejournal.com/profile)[**workerbee73**](http://workerbee73.livejournal.com/)  who prompted me with eating watermelon, intensive conditioner, and no smut. Um... it's way too angsty for a birthday fic, but that's what you get for telling me no smut.

Sleep was elusive. It always was these days. Nighttime was the worst; lying in her rack she was alone with nothing to stem the memories—so frakking vivid in her head that, at times, Kara forgot she was back aboard Galactica. This night, like every other night, was too godsdamned quiet, and her skin itched and crawled, and she just couldn’t lie there anymore. Sam made a grunt of protest, but didn’t wake, as Kara slipped out from underneath the covers.

She slid on her boots and didn’t look back.

The gym was empty when she got there, just the way she liked it. Without bothering to warm up or wrap her hands, she delivered a barrage of blows to the punching bag. Kara felt her heart begin to race. Her hands felt bruised and the skin on her knuckles scratched raw. It didn’t matter. It hurt like hell, but it didn’t matter. She let the pain fill her, let her mind focus on that alone. It was better that way.

She was so absorbed in landing blow after blow against a target that could not fight back, that she didn’t hear anyone approaching. She nearly jumped ten feet when she heard an icy voice break her silence. “I didn’t think there’d be anyone here.”

She steadied herself, struck three more times before glancing up. She didn’t need to to know who it was and she regretted it the moment she did. “Didn’t think you knew where this place was anymore.”

Lee lingered in the hatchway, arms folded across himself. “I do remember the layout of this battlestar,” he said.

One, two, three more blows; it was the only thing she could do right now. “Wasn’t testing your memory, Major.” The sound he made was utterly disgusted and he moved from the door and she didn’t think she could stand to see his back. Not that she had any right to complain. “Frak, No. Don’t bother, I’m done here.” Her knuckles were red and raw and starting to bleed and it was good enough for one night, she hoped.

Lee motioned something with his head. It wasn’t a nod, or any other distinct gesture, but he entered the gym, staying along the far wall and never once looking at her. Kara sat down on a bench, grabbing a water bottle and catching her breath and never once looked at him. Not when he could see her, anyways. He barely looked like Lee anymore, certainly not Apollo.

The moment before she stood, the silence broke again. “I heard you reupped,” he said in a voice she couldn’t decipher from the space between them.

Rank was so much easier to keep track of. It drew clear lines, or at least it was supposed to. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to anymore. “I did.”

When Lee spoke again, she could hear every blade in his voice. “What happened? Get bored of playing house with Anders?”

Her fingers itched to hit something again because the house in her head was not the tent she’d lived in once. “You’ve got no frakking idea what you’re talking about.”

“I read the reports.”

Prisoner of war. Good enough for a piece of paper. Didn’t cover a damned thing.

There were words on her tongue that she couldn’t say. Not to anyone and not to him. “So did I.”

And then he looked at her and he looked like a stranger. “What the frak does that even mean?”

“It means that I know that if it was up to you, you would’ve left us to die at the hands of the cylons.” The traitorous words, _you left me there_ , raced around in her head. He would’ve let her stay in that dollhouse, not like he gave a frak, not like he had a reason to. Some small rational thought told her that he hadn’t known, but it was quickly stamped out by the rest of the noise. They’d been okay once, but that was too long ago.

His jacket shed now, Kara could see the person Lee Adama had become. Parts of him that had once been sharp and firm had faded away, grown sagging and tired and soft. Pathetic, she told herself. But there was something, a spark of anger, a clenched jaw that looked like the CAG he used to be and he was crossing the room towards her. “Don’t act like you know what it was like up here, trying to put together a rescue op with less than a quarter of your pilots that wasn’t complete and total suicide? We didn’t even know if there was anything to come back and fight for! It’s not like we were sitting up here drinking tea and eating watermelon!”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she bit out, jabbing a finger into his stomach. She looked him up and down. Clean shaven, washed and rested, even his hair smelled like he’d been using a good conditioner. “Yeah, you look like you had it real hard.”

She shoved him back and turned away and to her back he said, “You know what, Kara? You made your frakking choice. Now deal with it.”

An image flashed in her head. A different choice. A different guy. Not being down on that frakking planet in the first place. She turned around, a guttural sound tearing from her throat as she swung. The blow went wide, but the momentum carried her forward, crashing into him.

“So,” he said, low and victorious. “You do feel something.”

A hundred responses came to her tongue. Instead, she said, “I’m out of here.”

Kara grabbed her water bottle and left, leaving Lee’s last cutting words in her wake. “Welcome back to the fleet, _Captain_.”


End file.
